Okay. First of all I like this stuff because my daughter’s name is Lottie and I happen to call her Lottie Dottie. But I really like this jewelry because of the interchangeable charms. I love stuff that I can change or add to. You’re going to see more items like this later in the post. I love my Origami Owl locket and my Pandora charm bracelet, both of which you can add charms to. I like to get something that I feel like isn’t complete, or that I can make my own by making choices of what I add to it.

Lotti Dottie jewelry is a collection of magnetic charms. You get a little key with your jewelry purchase that allows you to pop the magnetic charm out and replace it with another.

My cousin works for this company but I’m a bad cousin and I had never tried them. I finally requested some and my husband got me some and OH MY. Yeah. I think these are the only socks I’m going to wear from now on. Seriously.

I had never heard of these. I acquired a bread platter in a Dirty Santa exchange and I am in love. The concept is that you only get one set of serving dishes (mostly for entertaining) and you interchange their accessories (called Minis) to make them fit any occasion imaginable. I am now on a mission to get a complete set of dishes from Nora Fleming and start my Minis collection.

These are similar to the Lotti Dottie jewelry but instead of magnets, the charms snap into place. I just love stuff like this (obviously) so having several different kinds of them is absolutely okay with me.

What were you favorite Christmas gifts? Please share, I love hearing about new stuff so I can become addicted to it…

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When my kids are grown and don’t come into my room before dawn and crawl into bed with me, will I miss it? Will I miss those tiny little bodies snuggled against me under the covers on a cold winter morning before the sun rises? My answer right now may change by 5AM tomorrow morning.

Sometimes I struggle to get out of the house because my oldest daughter insists on a kiss and a hug no less than five times. “Mama,” she will say, “Another hug?” A few minutes later: “Wait! Another kiss, too?” This morning I found myself saying, “Bella, how many times are we going to do this?”

Why? Why did I say that? How many times are we going to do this, indeed. These requests will be short lived, I’m sure. One day she will be a dreaded teenager saying, “Don’t TOUCH me,” and then what? All I will have left are these memories, these memories of when she was so small, and so sweet and demanded hugs and kiss constantly. I have to remind myself of this frequently, specifically when she is climbing me like a tree and acting like she would like to wear me like an article of clothing. I think my children would climb right back into my womb if they were given the opportunity.

So many times, I find myself just counting down the minutes to bedtime. Can I put them down 15 minutes early? Will they notice? The screaming. The needing. The wanting. Mama! Mama! Mama! They test my patience more than I thought they would. The exhaust me more than I thought they would. My life is not my own, it’s theirs. Worrying. Planning. Making. Doing. Rocking. Feeding. Bathing. Wiping. Crying- sometimes them, sometimes me. Motherhood isn’t always pretty. It’s often emotional, exhausting, lonely, and sometimes very ugly. It’s the most selfless thing I have ever done, to give so much of myself to these two tiny humans.

Sometimes I feel so needed that I wish I could just press a pause button and take a few minutes. No one saying my name. No one crying. No one asking questions. No one touching me.

But one day, when I am not so needed, will I miss it? I imagine I will.

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Bella has started to draw pictures, and then she will dictate a story to me about her picture and ask me to write it on the back. In case you are interested, here is one of her recent stories, along with its picture:

I find it curious that this story is calling “The Little Dog and the Witch,” but yet I see no dog.

The story:

The Little Dog and the Witch

A long time ago, one little dog was in the forest and his mom told him it was time for bed, but he thought she said he could have a few more minutes. He tried to find his mom, but she turned into a witch, so he ran away, but Frosty the Snowman came and he turned his mom, the witch, into snow. Then, the puppy went home and found his real mom. The witch was a fake mom. And the puppy told Frosty the Snowman thank you. The end.

Clearly, this is a future bestseller.

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Tonight Bella and I were running some errands when we passed by where my husband works. Bella said, “Look! That’s where daddy works!” I told her she was right and then I asked her if she knew what the name of the place was. She said, “MEXICO!” We have been trying to explain to Bella that Daddy was born and grew up in another country. I think she’s a little confused.

Later I went through the drive through at Zaxby’s and I asked Bella if she wanted anything. She said no, that she wasn’t hungry. However, when she heard me order and realized what I was getting she suddenly realized she was practically starving to death.

“Why is it taking so long? I’m so hungry. I’m starving. I need those french fries. I need them right now. Why is it taking so long? It’s hard being patient. I CAN’T STAND IT.”

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One evening shortly after I had gotten home from work, Bella informed me that she would like to go to the toy store to get a new toy. For a couple of years, I could get away with taking Bella to the dollar store or letting her pick an item from dollar bins at Target. Those days have passed, my friends. She knows what a good toy is now and has figured out that they aren’t in dollar bins.

The toy she was asking for is one she found while watching toy review videos on YouTube. I had no idea these types of things existed until I had kids, but they do and they typically have a pretty big following.

Anyway, somewhere on the YouTubes, Bella found Kitty Surprise and decided she needed to have it in her life ASAP. I told her no, we were not going out to buy a $25 toy on a random Wednesday, but I would be happy to get it for her if she would save her money for it. She gets a few dollars here or there from us as a reward for putting away toys, helping me clean, and helping with the baby.

She got pretty angry about being told that she would have to save her own money for this object of her desire. She wasn’t entirely irritated by the “having to use her own money” thing, she was more upset at the idea of having to wait. She realized that she did not have $25 (she doesn’t know exactly how many 25 is, but she knows it’s a lot.) She threw a bit of a tantrum and shut herself up in her room for awhile. About 15 or 20 minutes later, she emerged carrying her art kit. She set up shop on the coffee table in the living room and started working on something by herself. This is a frequent occurrence in our house (the art kit, not the tantrums.) I didn’t ask any questions at that point. At the time, I was feeding Lottie applesauce in the kitchen so I was just glad Bella had calmed down and was playing quietly on her own.

After a few minutes, I happened to look at what Bella was doing and it looked a little interesting, considering the discussion we had just had about saving money. I asked, “Whatcha doin’, Bell?” And she said, “I’M. MAKING. MONEY.”

Sometime later, after the green paint on the on her money had dried, she stuffed the bills (she made 2) in her purse and sat it by the back door and informed me that DADDY would take her and her money to the store the next day to get her toy.

He didn’t take her because I told him not to; he kinda wanted to because he thinks she is genius for making counterfeit money but I informed him she is also being sneaky and manipulative. A few days later she was still talking about the toy, but no longer throwing tantrums or whining. Meanwhile, she had actually saved a good bit of money because I happened to post about her money making endeavors on Facebook and then people started donating to her cause.

The other day, I got home from work and started loading the kids up in the car to run some errands. Bella asked where we were going and I told her we were going to the store to get some things. She asked if we were going to the grocery store, and I said no, we were going to Target and she asked if she could get her Kitty Surprise. I said we could find it and see what the price was to see how close she was to saving enough money. She then informed me that we needed to go to Toys R Us (thanks a lot, YouTube toy review videos for being so INFORMATIVE) because that’s where the toy was. Apparently it’s an exclusive item.

So. We went to Toys R Us. She found it, and the box DID say it was a Toys R Us exclusive, so, she was right.

I ended up letting her get it and she used a gift card I had (but I took up the money she had saved, she hadn’t actually saved enough, but I let her go ahead and think she had.) I know, I know. I kinda gave in a little but it became worth it, keep reading.

So anyway, to give you a little information on this coveted Kitty Surprise toy: it’s this mother cat that has a pouch on its stomach that you can open and close back up with velcro. What’s in there? Hedgehogs. I kid, it’s kittens, obviously.

First of all, Bella couldn’t wait until we got home to open the thing, she managed to open the packaging and get that cat out of its box by herself. I can barely accomplish that on my own and I’m usually using box cutters, scissors, knives, and machetes to free her toys from their cardboard prisons.

Then, she eagerly opened up the cat’s pouch to see how many kittens were stuffed up in there. There were 4, in case you were eagerly anticipating that information. She squealed with delight, “LOOK, MAMA, LOOK. THERE ARE FOUR KITTENS! LOOK HOW CUTE THEY ARE! LOOK AT THEM! AWWWWW!”

Then she stuffed the kittens back in the pouch and closed the mama cat back up.

Then the things happening in my back seat started to get a little weird. The next few minutes went something like this:

“Mrrrrrrrrr. Mrrrrrrrr. Meoooooooooow.”

I started staring at Bella in the rearview mirror. She continued with the strange cat moaning and then she started making various voices:

“I…..can’t do it! Mrrrrrrr! Meeeeeeoooowww!!! Mrrrrrrrrrrrr….”

“Yes you can! I can see the baby kitty!”

“Meeeeeeeowwww! Mrrrrrrrrr!”

“I can see it! Here it comes! Here it is, look at your baby kitty! Awwwww isn’t she cute?!?!?”

Meanwhile, I was like, “…..W.T.F.?”

I was legitimately confused on how my child knew specifics about birth but when I told my husband and mother about this occurrence they didn’t seem as surprised. So, I don’t know what it is exactly that Bella is doing on their watch, but I suspect it might involve education about cat births..

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Bella has been saying for weeks that she wants to be a butterfly for Halloween. Actually, she wants to be “Butterfly Girl.” She got the idea from one of her “Ladybug Girl” books. She wants ME to be “Ladybug Girl” and her daddy to be “Bumble Bee Boy.” When asked what she wants to be for Halloween, she will consistently give these same answers (except that sometimes she will leave off the who “boy” and “girl” part and just say she wants us to be the specific insects). Her answer for what Lottie will be, however, has not been consistent. One day she didn’t know and seemed confused by the question. One day she said, “Tinkerbell.” But the other morning when asked by her father what she was going to be for Halloween, she said this:

Bella: “I want to be Butterfly Girl. And I want Mommy to be Ladybug Girl. And I want you (Daddy) to be Bumble Bee Boy.”

My husband: “And what is Lottie going to be?”

Bella: “…..a fly.”

And there you have it.

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This week has been long. Work has been busy. My husband works evenings so when I get home, I usually also have the kids by myself. By the time I get them (when it’s “my” turn) they’re both tired and grumpy because it’s 5 pm and they’ve been up all day and my husband has usually taken them out to various places and activities during the day. I usually try to do something fun that they are both almost always pretty whiny about. Then I do dinner, bath, story, bed. By then it’s almost 10pm and I’ve still got emails to respond to and laundry that needs to be folded and dirty dishes in the sink and a million other household chores. I try to flop into bed by midnight at the latest.

Then I get up the next day and repeat the whole thing all over again.

Thursday night (last night- or this morning, actually) was particularly awful. The girls started waking up at 4 am. Bella pretty much got UP for the day at 4 am, which may or may be my own fault, because the evening before she fell asleep at just past 8 which I knew would be bad news for me the next day. She usually goes to sleep somewhere between 9:30 and 10. But last night, she just went into my bed, curled up and fell asleep, she was obviously exhausted. What was I supposed to do, wake her up and make her stay up til 9:30? I thought about it, but I didn’t. Instead, I went ahead and knocked out the chores early and settled in to actually watch a movie. It was Divergent.

Lottie was not asleep, but she was happy to sit in my lap quietly and chew on teethers while I watched the movie.

So, Bella started waking up at 4. She wanted to watch tv. Then she wanted some milk. Then she went to the bathroom and lathered up her hands with soap and couldn’t get the faucet to turn on because her hands were all soapy so she needed me to do it. Then Lottie was crying. Then Bella wanted breakfast. Up until then I had been trying to continue to sleep while leaving Bella to play quietly in her room. Obviously that wasn’t working out, so I gave up and got up for the day.

Then Bella started cocking an attitude with me, which is a serious problem we are having with her at the moment and I’m hoping it’s just a stage. She throws things and attempts to boss us around: “I don’t want to, YOU do it. YOU pick it up. YOU do it. Bring me my juice! YOU get it. YOU do it. I don’t want to. I’m too tired. I’m busy.” We aren’t actually obliging her, but she still continues to shout and try to assert herself. Anyway, I ended up sending to her room until she could behave and speak to me in a more appropriate tone and manner and then she was squalling and crying and calling me mean mommy and telling me she just wanted me to leave her alone and go to work. So that was delightful. What happened to my baby that begged me NOT to go to work because she wanted me to stay home and snuggle with her?

Anyway, by the time I got out of the house I was tired and frustrated and worried about what is going on with Bella.

It was such a bad morning that I decided screw it, I was going to stop for good coffee. I don’t usually stop for coffee anywhere, I just make it at home in the Keurig. But at the end of a long hard week, after a night of very little sleep, on a morning when I had been fighting with my daughter, I felt that good coffee, lots of it, was in order.

So I pulled in Starbucks and it was of course, packed. Then when I kind of got close to the ordering screen, the SUV in front of me had pulled forward, but seriously only pulled forward about a foot, so their entire car was still in front of the ordering screen and I was still waaaaay far away from it. But that didn’t stop the employee on the other end from persistently trying to take my order: “Can I take you order. Hello? Can I take you order? Have we helped you already? Hello? HELLO?” So I was trying to shout at them while I wasn’t close to the screen and they couldn’t hear me and the whole thing was awkward and frustrating and I was cursing myself for thinking that it was “SUCH A GOOD IDEA TO STOP FOR COFFEE!”

By the time I got to the window, I was fuming and just ready to call it quits for the day even though it was only 7am.

But then the Starbucks employee handed me my beverage and said, “The car in front of you paid for yours.”

And suddenly, just like that, my day got a little better.

I’ve read about these random acts of kindness and “pay it forwards” but I’ve never been on the receiving end. It was a definite pick me up at the very moment that I needed it, so thank you for that, kind stranger.

And I will pay it forward on my own soon and hope that my random act of kindness touches someone as much as it touched me today.

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My husband and I got in a heated argument a few weeks ago. Do you know what it was about? Our phones. Somehow we had gotten to that place where one of us was always staring at it. Habit? Boredom? Addiction? I don’t know. All three, probably. We would be taking a walk with the kids, or at the park, and one of us would be staring at their phone. We would be having dinner, not talking, staring at our phones. One of us would be talking to the other and that person would be saying, “uh huh” and “yeah” and nodding like they were paying attention, but they weren’t. I was sometimes “that mom” taking a picture simply to :”Capture the moment! Share it on Instagram! On Facebook! Wheeeee!!”

Each of us realized the other was doing it, “Stop looking at your phone and look at me, listen to me, be with me, be with the kids,” one of us would say to the other. Then within 20 minutes, the one that just got called out was saying it to the other.

So you know what? We quit. No, seriously. We really did. No phones out when we’re doing family time. No phones out when we are eating. No quickly taking a bunch of photos and slamming them out there on social media instantly. Nope.

And you know what? I love it. More than that. I am IN LOVE WITH IT. So then I took it a little further. I’m now only looking at my Facebook or Instagram or Twitter (or whatever else) in the evenings before bed. Maybe once or twice I’ve glanced at it outside of this time frame but when I’ve done it, I’ve caught myself thinking, “Why am I doing this? I don’t want to look at this.” I imagine I’ve only broken the rule out of lingering habit. A habit that I’ve had for, what, a decade?

It’s not that I cut it out completely, or that I plan to really. I’m even still posting or sharing things. Usually it’s pictures, but most of the time I share them in evening and I took them earlier in the day. I’m trying not to post them “right then,” (GOTTA SHARE, GOTTA SHARE, GOTTTA SHARE.) A few weeks ago I went on a rafting trip with friends. I didn’t take any photos or have my phone out, mostly because I was on a river and you shouldn’t have your phone on a river. I still really wish I had taken some photos, not to just to put on Facebook, but just to have, for me. I’m not gonna lie though, I also kinda wanted pictures for the purpose of putting them on Facebook. Why did that matter to me? Why did it bother me the slightest bit? Did not posting pictures make it a less important event? It still happened, despite not sharing it with the world. I still had fun, my friends and husband had fun. What more did I need?

Probably for people to give me some “likes” honestly. That’s gross, right?

I just feel like I’m reaching a place (I haven’t totally reached it yet, but I’m getting there) where I’ve outgrown it. It doesn’t make it stupid. It doesn’t mean I’m better than anyone who still likes it or has made it a habit in their lives. It just means it’s not really for me anymore. It’s just not a priority. It used to be kind of fun but I really don’t find it much fun anymore.

By taking most of its presence out of my life, I actually feel HAPPIER. It was like a switch that I flipped. I didn’t know that switch NEEDED to be flipped but boy I’m glad I did it.

You know what I have come to realize about social networks? It really makes people get on my nerves. People I REALLY, REALLY like. I can’t tell you how many close friends that I still love so much and would hang out with all the time, that I have removed from my feed because they make me nuts on Facebook. From portraying a life that isn’t entirely accurate (fluffing it up), to rants, to bragging, to topics they just post or talk way too much about, Facebook makes me dislike the people I really do like. I don’t know what it is about social networks. Do we just feel so much more at ease to say things that we wouldn’t have the guts to say in person? Do we just get bored and post things without really thinking about them and how they will affect other people? I don’t know. I’m sure I get on people’s nerves too, specifically with the 10,000 pictures of my kids that I post and probably these blog posts.

Something I’ve really come to understand is that I like people better not seeing their Social Networking personalities.

So, all in all, I’ll be keeping the social networks I use around, and I’ll probably still post on them from time to time, it’s still a way to keep in touch with the people I don’t see very often. It’s still a communication medium where I can see what is happening with my friends and family and they can see me.

But I am going to choose actual interactions instead of relying on Facebook/ Social Media (I keep referencing Facebook the most because it’s the one I use the most, though I do use others). And I’m going to continue to cut out staring at my phone when I’m with people that are important to me. I’m going to continue to take pictures all the time, (because I do take them all the time, I have 2 small children) but I’m not going to be one of those people that’s all “LET ME CAPTURE THIS, LET ME PUT IT ON FACEBOOK, I WANT PEOPLE TO SEE WHAT I’M DOING.? Because you know, I really don’t care anymore. I don’t care if anyone knows what I’m doing. I know that sounds stupid, because here I am POSTING ON A BLOG. I guess I just felt like putting it out there. Maybe someone else has outgrown it as well. I haven’t really been “blogging” in awhile either, which doesn’t mean I’ve quit writing things. I’ve just not been posting them here. Maybe I’ve outgrown this blog, too. I need more time to think about that.

Life isn’t a competition. It’s not about showing everyone else what I am doing. It’s not about watching what everyone else is doing either and comparing what I’m doing with what they’re doing or comparing what they have to what I have. And I do it, I do it without even realizing that I’m doing it. It’s like this subconscious beast sometimes and I want that beast to die.

Life, at least for me, is about living it to the fullest. It’s about being free and being happy with how I’m living and what I’m doing. The things I like, the things that my family and I do may not be the same things other people are doing. And that’s okay, it really is. I don’t need to compare myself and my life other people every single day, several times a day.

LIVING. Can I really do that when I’m consumed with “sharing” and stalking what other people are “sharing” too? I really don’t think I can. I’m a positive person, and social media makes me feel negative. Sometimes I read through the things that are being said in my feed and I just feel icky and sad.

So these are just my thoughts. Social media isn’t going away, it’s here to stay, I’m not stupid or in denial. But my relationship with it just isn’t working out. And I guess that’s all I have to say about that.

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For instance, the other day my mom and I were having a conversation over dinner while Bella sat at the table with us. Something like this was said about someone: “He was probably good looking once, but now he always has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and he has really bad teeth.”

Then Bella said; “Why does he have bad teeth?”

Things like this happen all the time. I say things (but for the record, it wasn’t me that said it this time, it happened to be my mom, JUST SAYIN’) in front of her and then realize she’s listening to me and it’s like “Oh..there you are..with you ears..that hear things.”

The best part about it is that when you say something in front of her about someone, it’s pretty much a given that she is going to repeat whatever it is she heard to that person the next time that she sees them. So if I’m ever avoiding you when I’m with my child, there might be a reason.

*For the record, I explained to Bella that he probably has bad teeth because he doesn’t brush them and eats too much candy because I’m not above resorting to scare tactics.

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About me

I'm Rachel, a 20 something (closer to 30 than 20 unfortunately) wife and mother from Tennessee. This is me latched onto my husband's leg. It may look all whispy and romantic but I'm really just doing that so he doesn't run away. My husband is originally from Mexico, his name is Jesus, not the Biblical one. He's fluent in English but we still have a language barrier from time to time. That's okay, it just keeps things interesting. We are raising a bilingual daughter, Bella (est. February 2010). This is my blog. I hope you stay awhile.